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At a recent sweat lodge ceremony at a "spiritual warrior" retreat offered by new age guru, James Arthur Ray, a score of people fell ill and were taken to a hospital for treatment and three people have since died.
The deaths of James Shore, Kirby Brown and Liz Neuman have raised many questions about James Arthur Ray's business and spiritual practices as well as self-help/new age movements more broadly.
Ray is probably best known for his appearances in the movie "The Secret" and on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In the aftermath of the sweat lodge deaths, bloggers have called Ray a "fraud," questioned Oprah for helping "legitimize" him and called sweat lodge ceremonies "bull."
Much of the criticism of Ray centers around the price of the retreat (nearly $10,000 dollars), his perceived co-opting of Native American culture and reports from the retreat of how Ray used what some are calling his charismatic leadership:
She also described a game — enacted again at the retreat this month — in which Mr. Ray wears white robes and plays God, ordering some participants to commit mock suicide.
For the “vision quest,” the exercise that required spending 36 hours in the desert without food or water, participants had sleeping bags, but Mr. Ray also offered to sell Peruvian ponchos for $250, Dr. Bunn said. ...
Dr. Bunn’s description of the sweat lodge dovetailed with accounts gathered by Thomas J. McFeeley, a cousin of one of the dead, Ms. Brown, a painter from Westtown, N.Y. Mr. McFeeley said that he and his relatives had spoken to about 10 people who were in the lodge, lightly clothed, and that by all accounts, Mr. Ray had discouraged them from leaving except during brief breaks.
“James Ray stood by the door of the tent and he controlled when those rounds began and ended,” Mr. McFeeley said. “He called for more and hotter rocks that were brought into the tent between the rounds. He instructed people inside that you could not leave during the rounds. If you had to leave, you had to wait until the end of the round.”
Some however have questioned what role personal responsibility played in the tragic events. Suzanne Falter-Barns at Get Known Now Blog asks: "Are You Guru-Dependent?" and BlogHer CE Paula Gregorowicz at her personal blog issues An Open Invitation to the Self-Growth Industry:
The recent sweat lodge deaths at a spiritual warrior retreat led by James Arthur Ray really raise an excellent question. A question that deserves a thoughtful conversation among leaders in the self-development and spiritual leader community. A conversation that doesn’t seem to be happening. That question and its inherent paradox/conundrum as I see it is:
In work designed to push people past their perceived limitations, how does individual participant responsibility get honored without diminishing the value of the leader or defeating the core purpose of the work?
While police investigate the sweat lodge deaths, it might be a good time for us to individually take this as a wake-up call to question, examine and evaluate what we are seeking from personal growth teachers, events and opportunities.
Have you ever participated in a sweat lodge ceremony or other kinds of personal growth retreats? What value did you receive from such activities? How should we evaluate teachers, leaders or gurus and how can we set and enforce personal boundaries?
Related Reading:
Dr. Christine B. Whelan Swans® Song: James Ray Death Lodge: When Will We Learn?
The obvious question is: Why did these men and women stay in such a hostile environment, even as their lungs burned from the heat and they felt themselves slipping into unconsciousness? Why? Because they were brainwashed into believing that those sensations were merely their culturally prescribed limitations, and that they could push on, prove that they were stronger and stick it out.
Indeed, just hours before the deaths, James Ray posted this to Twitter: ”Still in Spiritual Warrior … for anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?”
We often think of self-help as harmless and silly, but the charismatic leadership that these gurus wield is a powerful psychological force. Just because a ceremony is New Age or from a native tradition doesn’t mean that it’s benign. As with all powerful experiences, training and supervision is crucial. And when a leader encourages his followers to override their own bodily signals — encourages them to give up their free will
